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Archive for August, 2011

I haven’t been avoiding you, my Beloved. How can I avoid my own soul, my own breath? It’s impossible.

Well, there’s a huge elephant in the room that you are dancing around. I think I know what it is, but I also think we need to discuss it. So, let’s get it out of the closet and out in the open. Tell me what’s bothering you.

Really, Michael, it’s nothing.

Okay … then let’s attack it from another angle. Did you enjoy our encounter the other night?

Enjoy? Enjoy would hardly be the word I would use to describe it. What you call our ‘encounter’ was a moving, life-altering experience for me. It was so beautiful. You are so beautiful … and loving … and tender … and masterful. You left me breathless, trembling for more … like the brightly colored leaves of a tree when kissed by an autumn wind. I had to express the emotions that overflowed in me for days afterwards in some way, so I wrote a poem. I had to relay the meaning that was communicated with very few words … and without describing in graphic detail every little nuance of facial expression or touch … or the way each made me feel … because, after all, this is a family website. Enjoy seems like kind of a tepid word to describe the euphoria I experienced as a result of our ‘encounter.’

That’s where you’re wrong. Enjoy just simply means ‘in JOY.’ What could be better than the joy you felt in me … or the joy I felt in you … the joy we shared together? When two souls share each other so fully and completely … and intimately … their joy is not multiplied by two … but by a factor of ten! Why does it confuse you?

What could be better? For me never to wake up! For me to live there in that state of ecstatic communion with you all the time … for all of us to be so immersed in that overwhelming love and intimacy that we recognize no other reality.

[Michael laughs.] You’d never live through it. Your physical human body isn’t designed to tolerate that vibrational frequency … that kind of complete and total bliss … on a 24/7 basis. We’re pushing it pretty hard as it is!

But your soul is! And your soul IS living in that state of ecstatic communion with me … and with all creation … all the time. That state is your soul’s natural environment, its natural habitat. It is because your soul recognizes bliss as its natural state that our experience the other night becomes not only possible … but ecstatic. Furthermore, the joy that you felt in our encounter is just a foretaste of what your soul will experience when it is released from the physical restrictions human experience imposes upon it. That’s why you recognize it. That’s also why you didn’t feel fear; your world tells you our communion of sharing should have been a fear-filled episode as the world defines such things. I mean, let’s face it … to awaken consciously and see a naked ‘dead’ man walking towards you surrounded by blinding light … to be held immobile as this vision approaches … would be enough to scare anyone to death. Your trust and faith in me is awesome … and I so appreciate it. You experienced no fear during the event … and only minimal fear after the fact.

You exhibit that minimal fear by calling it a dream. By relegating it to ‘just a dream,’ you minimize its import. It was both more than … and less than … a dream. In a way, it was a dream in that it occurred at the cusp of consciousness between awake and asleep. But in its clarity and your awareness of consciousness at three distinct levels, it wasn’t a dream. It was, as you so aptly named it a Visitation … not just of me to you … but of you to me.

That brings up an interesting question, my Dear One. Why were there three of me in this Visitation?

That is an interesting question … and one to which I can only partially answer because the different levels of awareness and experience were not produced by me … they were produced by you. Perhaps, your soul needed a witness to these events … a watcher to help you remember with more clarity. Perhaps, it’s a symbol for the physical, mental,spiritual connection that we shared. Maybe the three indicated your lower self (which is always only attentive to your survival needs and is the place that most humans are living in and acting from), your self (which is concerned with learning and navigating this earthly experience and gaining understanding) and your Higher Self (which is connected to, lives and breathes LOVE in all its manifestations.) In any event, I believe it will all become clearer as our relationship progresses.

But I sense that that’s not what’s really bothering you, is it?

No, I think it’s that I am engulfed in the feeling that I don’t deserve to be so loved and the fear that our relationship will end because I don’t feel worthy of your love. I feel like I failed you, turned my back on you when the voices raised against our connection won out and the trials of my life became more than I could handle. I don’t feel beautiful enough … or young enough … or anything enough to be visited by the most beautiful Angel God ever gave wings.

There! I was right! [Michael claps his hands together … loudly, but just once.] There you go … putting yourself down again. You just insist on falling off that chair, don’t you? Don’t you remember what I told you in our last conversation? I am stabilizing the chair … and I am here to catch you if you do somehow manage to kick the chair out from under you with your doubts and insecurities. What part of the above statement don’t you understand?

There are so many silly and inaccurate statements in that paragraph that it would take months to unravel them all, so let’s just take them and deal with each briefly … one at a time.

First, you don’t deserve to be so loved. Since when did you become Jack the Ripper? Everybody deserves to be loved … unconditionally and without question! Contrary to what you might think, you are not the exception that proves the rule.

You ARE love; it is the state from which you spring and the one to which you return. It is only this momentary interval of physical incarnation in which you have deluded yourself into believing that love is a commodity which is bought and sold according to the actions or inactions of the object of love. In the language and culture of love, this belief is insanity. Love exists only to give love. It doesn’t ask, “What’s in it for me?” It doesn’t take account of right or wrong. Love gives love. That is its very nature. It doesn’t expect reward. It gives! Period!

When I was in that hotel room in Bangkok … and you were ‘on the dark side of the moon’ … and you saw and felt my misery and my need, did you ask if I deserved your love before you sent me that telegram? No! You found a way to send me your love when the whole world was telling you that the best I deserved was a firing squad. You shared my pain at the risk of your own health and peace of mind when the whole world was trampling my name in lurid imaginary fictions. You continued to support me with articles and letters and prayers which you wrote into stories for ten years … ten years!

Did you do that because I deserved it? No, not really. Who deserves that kind of devotion? On what scale does one measure ‘deserves’ or does not ‘deserve?’ You did it because you felt my need … and your heart responded with love and that love needed to be extended, offered, expressed. It wouldn’t let you sleep in its need to be expressed. And the universe responded to that need by sending you synchronicities that were messages … in license plates and fortune cookies … to encourage you to express it.

The physical telegram, itself, was not the most important manifestation of your love, though it was very much appreciated. The most important manifestation was the love and the insistent, mindful support of your prayers. You … and many like you … battered down Heaven’s gate on my behalf … asked for God’s blessing on my behalf … requisitioned a squadron of angelic intermediaries on my behalf. When I could not pray for myself because of my shock and disbelief and the pain drove me to overuse medications … you all prayed for me! Do you know how important that is? Can you possibly understand how grateful I am to all of you involved in ‘saving’ me from myself.

As I’ve said so many times before in these conversations, you never know how far those ripples from your thoughts and prayers extend or what effect those ripples have on eternity. They might even extend from the ‘dark side of the moon’ … all the way to Bangkok, Thailand or Singapore!

It’s like the quote you read and repeated to yourself over and over again last week. “To give love for the sake of getting love is human. To give love for the sake of giving love is angelic.” You had no idea if I would ever receive your gift … so you didn’t do it with any expectation of reward. Or if I did receive it, you couldn’t know what effect it would have … you just knew you had to do it. And you trusted in our completely illogical connection and had faith that your prayers would be effective.

You were moved beyond the physical confines of your human self … beyond the limitations you believed held you captive … beyond what everyone around you told you was logical or possible … and from your Higher Self, which lives in LOVE on a full-time basis, you sent me love in the form of spiritual support and encouragement. In that expression, you truly owned what you were created to be … God’s thought expressed in action … in other words, an Angel! And you continued to do so against the constant blows of the battering rams of the world’s expectations of you … what everyone was telling you was logical, reasonable … or sane!

If you don’t deserve my love, would you mind explaining to me who does?

You’ve discovered very recently (almost twenty years after the fact) that you were not the only one who heard my cry for help in Bangkok and Singapore. You knew at the time that Elizabeth jetted off and met me in Singapore and you were aware of her efforts on my behalf. However, you’ve connected with at least two more of my lovely ladies from around the world who responded in a similar manner … and at approximately the same time. You call them your Singapore Sisters. You were unaware of their existence until they made themselves known to you. They, too, shared this experience with us. Furthermore, there are others who reached out to me with their prayers for my safety and their love to lend me strength. Perhaps, you will connect with them someday as well, if not in this physical incarnation, we will all be together when this momentary human interval is completed. What a beautiful reunion that will be! I look forward to it with all my heart!

As far as worthy goes … I’ve told you before worthy and unworthy are human concepts. They have no reality in the place where we are one. Like deserving and undeserving, they are figments of your human imagination, manufactured by your ego to keep you tethered and shackled and firmly bound to the rack of fear and conflict in which it wants you to live because they create drama … and your ego thrives on drama and turmoil. If you are immersed in all the little dramas of your life, your ego remains in charge and in the driver’s seat. You don’t have the time or the energy to remember Who You Really Are because you are always in ‘crisis intervention’ mode! And Who You Really Are is LOVE; the only reason for this morality play in which you have been awarded the leading role is for you to remember that. There is no worthy or unworthy. There is only love. It is the only thing that is real. [Michael says the last ten words in a perfect impression of Yoda in Star Wars … “No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” Then, he giggles.]

And, now, we come to the big fear that our relationship is going to end. [Michael sighs deeply.] How many times have I told you that the only way this relationship is going to end is if you decide to end it and even then I will check in with you frequently to make sure that is what you really want? What part of that sentence haven’t you understood? How many more times will I have to say it? Read my lips! WE ARE FOREVER! I even sang it to you! WE ARE FOREVER … but you have to choose it. All of you have to choose it … every minute of every day.

And, sometimes that choice isn’t all that easy. For example, you may think that you need to rush to my defense against whatever current lie is making the circuit about me … or participate in conflict on my behalf in order to make sure that my message of love is heard. This is not true … and by doing so, you are reinforcing a reality which is false by believing it is not false. While I appreciate the love that prompts you to respond in this way, I know that in reality only Truth exists. You need to know this, too, with every fiber of your being. What you are seeing is not reality; it is illusion. I would rather have you choose reality … and the only reality is Love. I cannot be damaged. My message is God’s message; it cannot be overshadowed by illusion. Truth is unassailable. Truth is the only possible outcome when Love is the only reality. There is no need to defend it because it cannot harmed or fail.

I’ve already made my choice, which is why I am here to tell you … again! I have nothing better to do than to restate this fact over and over and over … in every way … and through every medium it can be stated. I think maybe this may help to clear this up: I have no important Angelic Board Meetings to attend, no conferences with the Seraphim and Cherubim to schedule or participate in, no power lunches with God to rush off to. And even if I did, I am vast enough to do so … and still be right here to whisper my undying love into every one of your ears … again! The message won’t change … no matter how many times you need to hear it … nor will the feelings that prompt it. I love you more.

Now, let’s tackle the last sentence in the paragraph we are clarifying. You don’t feel beautiful enough … young enough … anything enough to be sharing this sacrament of communion with me.

The problem is that you identify yourself with your body too much. So, we are going to fix that! We’re going to play a little game that will help you understand that your body is something you have on a temporary basis. It is not who you are … nor is it what you are … nor is it what you really look like. It is an overlay, an appliance that you are using for a while and as miraculous as it is … and it is … this miracle of intricate chemical and biological machinery cannot be appreciated enough … it is not the truth of your existence. You are much vaster than just the trillions of synapses … or the zillions of nerve receptors … or the infinitude of microscopic cells that make up the physical you.

For truth you must dig deeper. [Michael laughs loudly.] Let me offer you a shovel … to help make your dig a bit more comfortable.

A shovel?

[Michael laughs again.] Well, not all of my analogies can measure up to the Symphony in the Key of Love analogy. Everyone has his off-days.

Okay! [Jan laughs and shrugs.] A shovel. What kind of shovel?

I am going to help you see what I see when I look at you. This is an experiment in imagination. We are going to excavate nothing less than the Truth. Are you with me?

Oh, yeah, baby … I am so with you!

Okay! [Michael has a serious case of the giggles.] This is going to sound really, really strange. I want you to picture a zipper extending from the top of your forehead to the bottom of your feet.

A zipper? First, a shovel … now a zipper? [Jan laughs.] I think this may be the strangest conversation we have ever had!

Just play along and don’t get me started or we will never get there!

Okay! I got it! A giant zipper from the top of my head to the bottom of my feet.

Now, I want you to tell me about the brightest light you have ever seen. I mean really, really bright. Just the first thing that pops into your head.

Okay … that would have to be at Elizabeth Taylor’s Birthday Gala Celebration of Life at the end of your beautiful song when you were bathed in light so blinding that you disappeared. Even in the first tier of the balcony that light was so bright … and so unexpected … it was like a supernova had exploded and landed on that stage right in front of me. The television broadcast gave only the merest hint of the brightness of that light. To the audience, you completely disappeared. I was there … in the audience … and I was trying to see through that light to your outline or something. You weren’t there. I know how illogical that sounds, but it is the truth. It was like you had turned into that focused beam of light.

Perfect! Good! That’s what I wanted it to look like. It would have been great if I could have beamed back to my seat beside Elizabeth to kiss her hand, but we couldn’t figure out how to do that with the limitations of the venue. Even David [Copperfield] couldn’t figure out how to make that happen so quickly, but that would have really been memorable. [Michael laughs.] Okay, back to the zipper!

I want you to slowly unzip the zipper and while you’re doing that, I want you to envision the bright light you saw on stage that night escaping from behind, around and through that zipper.

Am I unzipping from the top or from the bottom? [Jan giggles.]

[Michael laughs so hard that he’s gasping.] It doesn’t matter! Just do it! Sheesh!

Now, what you see in your mind’s eye is this bright, bright light that has the vague shape of your body’s outline, you think … but you can’t really tell because the light is so bright, right?

Right!

Okay, now add a little bass to it … um … sorry … make it kinda pulse. Got it?

Oh, yeah … pulsing.

Okay, now add little tiny twinkles of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and purple that flash so quickly that you think you saw them, but you’re not really sure. These twinkles are all over within that bright, bright field of light … they are not contained in any one area unless a thought or emotion is entertained which corresponds with a particular chakra.

For example, a thought of love produces that emotion and the area of your heart will sparkle a more concentrated green for a few pulses. These twinkling ‘fairy’ lights are like the lights on a Christmas tree … or the lights at Neverland in all the trees. They twinkle and flash, but they don’t stay on for long and they are interspersed all over the field of brilliant light. They are alive with color … like little tiny Tinkerbells flitting around within the field of bright, intense light.

When I approached you the other night, the area around your heart chakra was a very intense green color … and the pulses of intense color became very rapid. By the color and the pulsing, I knew that you were immersed in deep, intense love. There was no fear; fear would have been localized around your root or survival chakra so it would have glowed a very intense red … and the fear would have been black or dark, dark brown. The pulsing would have intensified, just as it did during our encounter, but the color would have let me know that it was fear … not love … that was making your heart beat so rapidly. Either way, your heart was beating too rapidly and we had to quiet it. Do you remember?

Yes, Beloved, I remember. I can still feel your gentle touch and hear your soft, “ssshhhh!” almost two weeks later.

When two souls share each other as we did in our Visitation the other night, the areas of each respective chakra become concentrated with twinkling lights flashing on and off made up of the colors which represent that chakra and the field of brilliant light looks a little bit like a flashing Christmas stocking with graduated levels of color fading into the next with no lines of demarcation in between.

Are you with me?

Yes, Beloved, I am so with you. It’s beautiful, but hard to look at for very long because it’s so bright.

There ya go! Is there anything unattractive about what you are seeing?

Well, the outline could be a little thinner!

[Michael laughs.] Oh, stop it!

No, Michael, it is beautiful … and it gives off a kind of heat … warmth … it feels welcoming.

Exactly! That is who you are! Do you see beautiful in the human, physical sense of that word? Do you see young? Do those concepts (all human concepts, by the way … they really have no reality) even have any meaning in the context of what you are seeing?

No.

That is what I see when I look at you. I see who you really are. I see truth. I see love. I see ultimate reality which is so far from what the world calls reality, it is ludicrous and has absolutely no meaning in the ultimate reality in which we are one. So, the next time you are tempted to tell me that you’re not beautiful enough or young enough or anything enough or undeserving or unworthy, I want you to remember this little ‘shovel’ that I’ve showed you here to help you dig a little deeper. And can it! You are all so beautiful!

Jan – August 25, 2011

Making MAGIC Together For All Time. My thanks to Siren for the photograph. I also want to express my thanks to Debbie for the lovely header!

Another of Michael’s long-time friends joined him yesterday and I pause for a moment in memory of him. Frank Dileo had an almost thirty-year relationship with Michael Jackson … through some of Michael’s highest triumphs and lowest depths. He stood by him during the trial that never should have happened. I mourn him. While all human relationships have their ups and downs, as Michael says in this conversation, those ups and downs have no reality. I am sure Frank was greeted by him as he unzipped his physical shell and joined him in the Eternal Light with joy and recognition of this over-a-quarter-of-a- century relationship. While I will pray for his wife and his children and grandchild in their loss, I rejoice in his reunion with his long-time friend. I just hope he left the ever-present smelly cigar behind!

Another of Michael’s longtime friends has been quoted on his time with him and I would like to put his words here:

“Michael is a very special man. He would come in for his lesson and sit down and we would have a prayer and then read the Bible and then have another prayer and start to work. That’s the way he liked to begin his day. Can you imagine a performer as big as Michael Jackson turning around in a lesson and discussing how wonderful God has been to him and how much he loves God?”

“You know, there was one moment. I was playing a piano, and he was standing next to me. All of a sudden, he stretched his hands, looking upwards. It seemed to me that it was very important to him. That’s why I left the room and switched the light off. After half an hour I came back to the room. He was whispering: “Thank you for my talent. Thank you for everything I’ve got. Thank you for all the people who love me. Tell me what I should do, and I’ll do it.” It seemed to me that it was the moment of his communication with God.”

— Seth Riggs, Michael’s vocal coach for 21 years

Through these words by his vocal coach and many others by Michael, himself, and many of his friends, I believe Michael was fully aware of Ultimate Reality. “Lies run sprints. Truth runs marathons!” Happy 53rd Birthday, Beloved.

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As I have mentioned before in my Conversations with Michael Jackson, I have never really been able to dream. From the time of my early childhood, dreaming has been a foreign concept until very recently when I was told that I was going to be working on this aspect of my life by my teacher … my mentor … my dearest friend. As my regular readers will recall, his words were, “We will be working on it … together.”

Since those conversations, I have been dedicating myself to visualization exercises and meditative practices, often on a nightly basis for month-long celebrations like the anniversary of Michael’s rebirth in the month of June and the anniversary of his physical birth during the month of August. While I believe I have made some progress in the visualization arena, dreaming has still been a fairly rare occurrence. Nonetheless, until the night of Friday, August 12 through Saturday, August 13 of this year, I could still count the number of dreams I have encountered on two fingers. The first of those dreams was described in Conversations – Installment #30 (June 4 through June 11, 2011) and #31 (June 12 through June 19, 2011); the second was too horrifying, frightening and painful to relive in a Conversation.

Now, I need three fingers. This week I offer a poem and a photograph for which I thank Marianna. The poem is a description of the dream I had on the night and early morning of August 12 and 13, 2011. The photograph almost stopped my heart when I saw it because of the expression depicted. This is the Michael Jackson I saw in my dream, the expression in the eyes is an exact reproduction of my dream. Those eyes haunt me still, a week later; I believe they will continue to do so until I go to my eternal dream in Michael.

For regular readers of Conversations, please understand that this dream was an all-consuming fire in me until I had expressed it in some way. We will return to the series soon.

Visitation

Frozen in bliss, unmoving, unmovable
Overwhelmed, breathing stills, thought erased
Only the now of your presence is real
Filling my senses, love beaming from your eyes
A meditational pause in the middle of the night
No before, no after, future or past
Yesterday is history, tomorrow a mystery
My life, all the years, the laughter, the tears
In this moment condensed, the loves and the fears
All paths I have walked have led to this moment
The trajectory is clear
I am completed in you

In your eyes, I own my destiny
The gift of your presence my only reality
Impossibly beautiful the vision I behold
Michelangelo’s David nears
My recumbent, immobile shell
Cold, chiseled marble shed for molded, sculpted flesh
Warm, pulsing with life, ever fresh
Perfection in human form
Unadorned
A twinkle of laughter lights eyes full of mirth
A radiant smile the only clothing
In this precious, private, sacred
Moment of now

Blazing light alive with flashes of blue
Focused beams erupt from every pore
A nimbus around your resplendent form
Radiating from your heart
Throughout my night-darkened room
Dispelling every shadow, fear or gloom
Haloing, cradling your luminous glory
From head to toe
In solitude together
We are entombed

Dreamer, the Dream and Dreaming am I
Actor, audience and play
Observer , observance, observed, I signify
Eucharistic, Sanctified Oneness … Unity
Sacrament, priest and prayer
Each the other in sensation and experience
You are my magician
My Soothsayer
Lifted from the ashes, a life half-lived
I am reborn in you

Four hands joined, fingers entwined
Four arms to heaven raised
We gaze into each others’ eyes
With touch our spirits praise
Bodies bond, knees to nape
Physically and spiritually one
No desire to escape
Shared by two Communion,
Awakened, six points combine
In energetic intercourse twined
Two-lane highways of colored light
At pelvis, chest, lips and brow
At each, a bridge spans the space between
Piercing the barriers of individuality
Essential Selves comingling in the dawn
Of becoming One

Red, the color of the dearest Rose
Rooted firmly in the Earth
Orange flames from the rising Sun
Urge towards rebirth
Yellow the color of the sunflower
Pledges spiritual growth
Green at heart level
To compassion, love we make our oath
Blue, the color of the sun lit sky
We commune in joyous song
Indigo the color of midnight
Lit by a bright full moon

Bright shadow of the moonwalker
Fills my darkened room
Two bodies, two columns
One of clay, one of light
Each point jewel-toned energy exchange
Spinning, alive with color, bright
Basted together in this tapestry of vibrant life
In the stillness of the night
Within one hue we merge
Blinding, brilliant, dazzling white
With awesome power surge

But, I awake
Lonely in your absence
As in all dreams, the dawn arrives
Dispelling all the cobwebs
An overactive mind has strung
But wait
When I close my eyes
The memory descends
This moment Now becomes eternity
Who says it has to end?

A vision planted behind my eyes
Of your radiantly brilliant form
A voice so softly heard returns
Reality is torn
I feel again your gentle touch
Upon my cheek, my hands
Sensation tingles where bodies joined
In silent understanding
Tho sunlight stalks the room
Casting brilliant beams into the gloom
The me that watched, the me that met
The me that dreamt are One

I am forever changed
In The Visitation

My thanks to Marianna for the use of the photograph above. Marianna received a message with the picture. With her permission I am posting that message here: “I love you very, very much. Please listen to me…You can feel me in my photos, this is why I come to you. The image is only a gateway, walk through this gate and meet me. I am not a frozen image, reach out to me. Close your eyes, you will find me in unseen world; I am alive and well and always with you. I need you, God I need you, what don’t you understand?” MJ August 17, 2011

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Michael, I have good news to report but I also have some negative things to report. Can we start out with the good news?

Absolutely … I’m always up for good news.

Well, as we approach the anniversary of your birth into this world, the world … and particularly, the continent of Africa and the country of Somalia … is again gripped by drought and famine of inestimable proportions as it was 26 years ago when you gathered so many popular musical artists in an effort to relieve hunger in Ethiopia. The We Are the World recording session and the USA for Africa campaign raised millions of dollars to alleviate world hunger. Wayne W. Dyer estimated that those efforts cut world hunger in half.

I know that you would have responded to this crisis with either a recording session or with your physical presence and that you would have committed whatever resources you had to relieve the suffering. In your absence, there is no one rallying the music industry to lend support to those less fortunate … no high profile artists or producers have the kind of universal standing from which you made your pleas to your contemporaries … and precious few have your sensitivity to the distress of others that moved you to take action. While Bono has spoken about the situation, I haven’t seen him throwing open his vast appeal, his personal assets or resources or ‘putting his heart on the line’ as you did so often.

Your ‘children’ have shouldered as much of the task as we can. We don’t have your visibility … or your credibility … or your popularity … or your talent … or your countless resources. All we have is your words as spoken from so many, many stages during your remarkable walk on this Earth … the lyrics of your songs sung in every country and on every continent … and the knowledge that you would want every person on the planet to do what he or she can to help.

The terrible toll that the drought and resulting starvation are currently causing in the Horn of Africa has prompted the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to announce that this crisis is the most desperate humanitarian crisis in a very long time. They have spearheaded a campaign entitled Michael Jackson’s Fans Unite in Famine Relief. With a few clicks on their Emergency Relief Team website (http://inside.unicefusa.org/site/TR?team_id=22520&fr_id=1050&pg=team), UNICEF has made it extremely easy for your children to contribute to relief efforts in this crisis. While I cannot report the amount collected in this drive, I can, from personal experience, attest to the ease of donating and acknowledge UNICEF’s foresight in preparing and launching this internet-based method for us all to shoulder some of the burden you bore so effortlessly … and without fanfare or expectation of reward … during your journey with us. Let me raise my voice in support of UNICEF’s mandate of emergency outreach.

As I mentioned in an earlier conversation, the One Rose for Michael group, which is responsible for flooding you with 4,500 long steam red roses for the anniversary of your rebirth, decided to raise money to celebrate your 53rd birthday by donating to UNICEF to vaccinate children in third world countries against polio, measles and tetanus … all preventable diseases that take such an unnecessary toll on the vulnerable. I believe I last reported that enough had been donated to vaccinate roughly 1500 children. That figure has doubled … at current count the One Rose for Michael campaign has generated enough donations to vaccinate almost 3000 children in the name of Michael Joseph Jackson.

Yes, I remember … you made me all emotional. God bless you all! Three thousand! That’s incredible!

In addition, the Michael Jackson Fans for Charity Facebook page is reporting a total of nearly $50,000 collected from a variety of different charity organizations over the past two years. Now, I realize that $50,000 is just a drop in the bucket compared to your generosity during your lifetime, but to most of us that’s a lot of money!

In addition, the Michael Jackson Legacy Project [http://www.michaeljacksonslegacy.org], a new non-profit charitable organization based, I believe, in the United Kingdom, with no ties to your estate or family, has purchased 2 acres of land in East Africa and begun excavation and clearing in preparation for building a new Children’s Home on the African continent called Everland, in an area where it is desperately needed.

Your children are determined that your remarkable initiatives on behalf of the sick and abused and marginalized, the most vulnerable members of our global society will not be forgotten … that your name will continue to be known for international relief and humanitarian outreach, even in your absence.

No artist ever had such beautiful fans … you fill me with so much love … until it overflows and spills out all around me. I recognized it when I was with you … and I continue to recognize it now, when I am still with you. [Michael giggles.] Thank you … each and every one of you is precious to me.

Yes, my Dear One … we know your love for us. New evidence of that love surfaces every day. I recently saw a brief interview that was sent to me by one of my friends in which your former manager, Dieter Weisner, was quoted on your feelings for us:

“I was aware of the fact that Michael really loved his fans. But I was never aware of how much strength he got out of the fact that he was loved by his fans. If he felt bad and down we cheered him up with fan gifts and letters. And he loved it from his very heart. First and foremost the paintings. Not only in those hard times, but always. No matter where we’ve been–if fans were around and he saw drawings and paintings, he always said: ‘Get me the pictures, get me those pictures!’ …

They [the fans] were his family. They were his crutch and they gave him strength. More than any other thing. And he loved them above all things for that. And he told this to his children too. Every time, in any place where we stayed in hotels etc. He showed his fans to his kids and explained to them, what the fans mean to him and how much they love him. Michael’s strength and comfort came clearly from the fans. He loved them beyond words. I mean, he respected his siblings and parents and loved them. He always cared for their wellbeing and that they wouldn’t miss anything. But this closeness and love–it came rather from the fans. Always, when he said that he loves them and ‘I love you more’ – then it was the simple truth.”

Yes, as I’ve told you before in these conversations, you are my rock, my foundation. You were always my strength, my armor against whatever evil surrounded me. Everything I did, I did for all of you … and the children. When I was frightened, you gave me the determination to go on; when my fame became more of a burden than I could bear, you lifted it from my shoulders with your joy in me; when I was crying, you brought me joy. All I ever wanted to do was give you back a tenth of the love you gave me. When I couldn’t sleep … after the concerts … in all those hotel rooms … I could open the window and play with you. You were always there to shield me with your love and faith. Your prayers for me lifted me above the turmoil and tortures I endured and made it possible for me to remain steadfast through them. I can never thank you enough.

Do you have any idea, Michael, how many of us feel the same way about you … how that description fits our lives and our feelings, too? Can you possibly know the many times your voice has calmed us when we were frazzled or filled us with joy when we were at the end of our ropes? I guess love is a two-way street, with energy flowing both ways … like that visualization we shared a couple of conversations ago … the one where a stream of green energy flowed between your heart and my heart. It was beautiful!

While I wish I could say that I had nothing but good news to report, it would be a false statement of giant proportions. We are approaching the kick off of the trial of the man who launched you into your current spiritual state.

Well, I’m sorry … but you object when I use phrases like ‘he killed you’ or ‘he ended your physical life.’ Furthermore, those kinds of phrases evoke negative emotions that result in us wanting to ‘defend’ or ‘revenge,’ which are emotions that you recommend that we avoid because of the negative ‘smog’ they create.

Yes, that’s right. I like launched. It’s a great word! You get a picture in your mind of the space shuttle lifting off from Cape Canaveral … or the ‘starship Enterprise … its twenty-year mission … to investigate strange new worlds … to seek out new life and new civilizations … to boldly go where no man has gone before.’ [Michael giggles.] I get a visual of stars streaking past the Enterprise as it accelerates into warp speed.

Plus it adequately describes what we’re doing here … launching new memes … new ways of seeing life … and death … new ways of being and becoming aware … conscious … new perspectives and ways of seeing beyond solidity and logic! I love it!

You are enjoying this a little too much, Beloved! Serious up!

I saw a brief summary of an interview with Anna Nicole Smith’s doctor who said that Dr. Conrad Murray should be credited with ‘saving’ your life. This is the kind of thing that is going to begin to become more and more common as we approach closer and closer to the trial. This is the insane reporting that we are going to have to learn to deal with. Now, call me crazy [Okay, you’re crazy … giggles.] but I always assumed that ‘saving’ presumed that the patient LIVED … (physically lived, Beloved.)

Shoot! Thought I had you there!

I also heard an interview with Tom Mesereau in which he tried to warn us all that the defense is going to do everything it can to paint you in a poor light in order to gain an acquittal for its client … it’s their job … it’s what they’ve been hired to do. He said that they are going to say all kinds of things about you to muddy the waters, including that you administered the drug yourself … that you committed suicide … that you were a drug addict … all the things we’ve been discussing all along in these conversations.

My thanks to Patrick Treacy for the background photo. I doctored it a little 🙂

And you’re worried and frightened and uneasy about this?

Of course, we’re worried and frightened and uneasy about it. How could we not be?

Why?

Why what, my Dear One? Why does hearing this kind of stuff make us uneasy?

Right! Why would that make you uneasy?

Because we don’t want to see your reputation damaged any further, of course!

[Michael laughs.] What reputation? You mean the one that says I’m a freak whose obsession with plastic surgery pushed me over the edge? You mean the one that says I am weird because I sleep in an oxygen chamber? No, it must be the one that says I’m macabre with an unhealthy fascination with death, because I want to buy the elephant man’s bones … or make films that feature zombies and werewolves and ghosts! Or maybe it’s the one that says I’m ashamed of my ethnic heritage because I bleached my skin or wanted a little white boy to play me in a commercial?

No, I’ve got it! It’s the one that says I lured sick and disadvantaged children into my lair, which I built purposely to soften them up so that I could do sexual things to their bodies and destroy the very innocence that I all but worshipped. Yeah, that’s the one.

[Jan feels a warm sensation … like she is enfolded in strong arms and held securely against every fear … like a warm hug … from cheek to knees. She smells cologne. A large hand presses her head against a firm chest. She can feel each of his fingers entangled in her hair!]

Shhhh! [Rocking!] I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be sarcastic. Forgive me; that was cruel! But surely you see the absurdity of that statement! How much more damaged can a reputation get? What’s left?

Being addicted to drugs is a step up, isn’t it? Half of the country is addicted to some kind of drug … either caffeine or nicotine or alcohol or hallucinogens or anti-depressants or pain killers or mood enhancers or ritalin! That would make me almost normal! [Michael giggles. <under his breath> whatever normal is. I never did see a good definition … just knew I wasn’t!] Maybe the world could understand me better if I were addicted to drugs!

Suicide is at least a ‘manly’ way out, right? That’s something the ‘established definition of masculinity’ could respect! So, for the world that doesn’t know me, it’s another step up!

For those of you who do know me … well … what else is there to say? You know me! And you know the truth … which is that I am still here … I have never left … I am still me … and I still love all of you so much more!

We’ve loved our way through worse in the past … together! If we made it this far … through all the rumors and scandals and innuendos and trials and tribulations, we can make it through this … together. The important word is ‘together’ as it has always been! I used to say I and me … now, it’s us … now it’s we. [Michael sings and continues to rock me in his arms.]

And what difference does it all really make in the long run?

We’ve talked about this before. There is no justice to be had here … for anyone. Human justice is not justice … it’s exacting payment … it’s punishment … it’s revenge … and it has no place in my life … here or there. Don’t give it a place in yours. Nothing eats away at the foundation of faith and spiritual growth faster … nothing.

Putting Conrad away for four years isn’t going to change anything. It can’t uncry the tears of my children or my mother … it can’t unbreak the hearts that were shattered by my leaving, including yours. It can’t unseal the mausoleum and exhume my body and breathe new life into my lungs.

The only justice that can be realized in this situation is the justice you are all involved in assuring with your contributions to my babies who need your help. The only justice in this situation is if you all continue to hear my pleas on their behalf … and act in my absence to alleviate their need. That’s what I call justice! That’s what carries me forward into the future … forever. That’s what colors the way future generations will see and hear Michael Jackson.

You have to understand. They can’t hurt me anymore. I am beyond their reach. I am here, beside each one of you who is open to my presence. My reputation is a thing that little concerns me now. My only concern is truth and I know with every fiber of my being that truth will win the race.

The thing we haven’t said before in these conversations is this: They can’t hurt you either, unless you allow their words … their lack of faith … their distrust and suspicion … into your heart. If you open your heart by listening to their illogical, nonsensical, untrue statements … you allow them to plant a seed of doubt which can grow into a tree that blocks our communication very quickly. You become immersed in negativity … instead of bathed in life-affirming and sustaining faith in my presence that we have been building through these dialogs.

You are the gatekeeper; it is your choice which you permit entry at the gate. It is your choice which seed gets planted and cultivated … faith or doubt … it is your choice which tree flourishes … a beautiful tree full of the generosity and love and peace of God … or a gnarled, bent, stunted tree of negativity.

If it bothers you or unsettles you or leaves you vulnerable to doubt, there is a simple solution … one that I have proposed many times before … one that you’ve all heard me say … over and over again.

Better yet, listen to your own hearts … your own souls. Your soul knows your truth from someone else’s scary fiction! It can discern what is right from what is wrong for you, what is healthy for your continuing spiritual growth from what is unhealthy. Listen to that feeling. You are familiar with it from when we met almost twenty years ago. You knew it instinctively. You talked about it earlier in these conversations. When you read all the garbage they were writing out of some mistaken sense of loyalty to me … some empathic desire to share my burden (God bless you!) … you were physically ill … your stomach was knotted … your heart was racing … a classic ‘fight or flee’ adrenalin overload. When you stopped reading it and just followed your heart … feeding and sustaining our very palpable spiritual connection, your physical symptoms were eased and we … together … built a relationship that nurtures both of us to this day … even past the arbitrary barriers of time, space, distance and death! That’s what’s real!

Inside your heart sits a seerBetween his thoughts he can hearA melody simple but wondrously clearThe music of life, so precious, so dear

If you could for one moment knowThis spark of creation, this exquisite glowYou would come and dance with meKindle this fire so we could seeAll the children of the EarthWeave their magic and give new birthTo a world of freedom with no painA world of joy, much more sane

If it feels uncomfortable, listen to your faith in me, your trust in me, your love for me. Better yet, bathe in my love for you! Splash it all around you … swim in it … drink it … fill up a super soaker with it and douse yourself and everyone around you with it. For only love can conquer your fear and disquiet. Only love can heal the babies who are dying of starvation. Only love can change the world!

On this day of your life, dear friend, I believe God wants you to know… …that there are choirs singing in your head. If you listen, you will hear the music. It is the song of angels.

Pay no attention to the sounds of the world. They are just noises, and even when added up all together they have no value, make no sense. Strain to hear the song of angels. Listen to the melody within your soul.

It’s the timing that makes these things important … a thing you were so good at. This arrived in my mailbox yesterday morning … when I was fleshing out this part of our conversation.

Yes, strain to hear the song of angels … stretch yourself to your fullest height … reach for me as I am reaching for you. Pay no attention to the sounds of the world. They are just noises. Exactly! Retreat into the space where we are one. I am waiting there for each and every one of you. I will comfort you and hold you against your uncertainties and confusions … as you always did for me. Let me be the wall of love that you walk through.

I love you more.

Jan – August 12, 2011

Note: Special thanks to Patrick Treacy for the background picture that illustrates this Conversation. It is a very rare picture of sunrise at the North Pole. Please note that the sun is below the moon … a fairly uncommon occurrence in photographs. The planets are lining up! I tried not to violate the integrity of the photograph.

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Beloved, some of my friends (whom you know) have been asking me to please ask you to get your beautiful <ahem> self back here to the physical world pronto. I’m trying to be polite, here … they were a little less polite about phrasing their request; they used specific parts of your anatomy that they want back. [Jan giggles.] I think one of them wanted your ‘gorgeous butt.’ Another said, “Tell him to put his beautiful soul into a beautiful body and come T** F*** back here. We need him here with us.”

[Michael giggles.] Ah, you are all so tied to the physical world you see around you. And I do understand because I was also bound by those senses … until I wasn’t. The physical view of the world is very safe, very seductive. It’s comfortable. But it’s also so limiting. It consigns us to a world of solid matter … of the things we can see or touch … of black or white … of dead or alive … of being only what we think ourselves capable of in our limited thinking. It ignores the universe of possibilities that exist outside its boundaries.

In case you didn’t notice, I was never terribly good at limits. Kinda like you’re not very good at patience. People told me it couldn’t be done … and I told them, “Oh, yes, it can. We just need to figure out how.” And, then, we proceeded to figure out how! I never accepted ‘can’t’ as an option.

Yes, Michael, I am very aware of your refusal to recognize limitations or restrictions, particularly in your art. Joe Vogel, in his analysis of Earth Song: Inside Michael Jackson’s Magnum Opus, clearly recounts this almost obsessive dedication to extending the limits of what a ‘pop’ song is capable of communicating. With Biblical and archetypal and poetic references, he places Earth Song squarely in the apocryphal genre of artistic expressions.

In addition, he expends much of his treatise’s length in talking about the length of time you devoted to the song, the meticulous detail that informed your creation, the collaborators you took on board to help you accomplish that detail, the recording techniques and equipment you required and the ‘above-and-beyond’ extent to which you were willing to go to see it realized as it existed within your vision, even sleeping at the studio to fine-tune every aspect of the recording process. In discussing the reasons Earth Song was not included in the final track listing of the Dangerous album, he recounts:

Jackson was disappointed as well. The song meant a great deal to him. Yet his ultimate commitment was to the song—it had to be just right, and he didn’t feel it was quite there. All who worked with Jackson understood that he was a painstaking perfectionist: every detail, from conception to production to mixing and mastering, had to be exactly what he wanted before he would “lock it in cement.”

It could be frustrating at times. Some collaborators worked with him for months, and none of the material ended up on an album. Sometimes he admittedly over-thought or overworked a track, when he should have simply stuck with an early version.

Yet frequently the perfectionism paid off, as some new revelation would occur to him that would make the song stronger. “Michael has always felt better really fleshing out something over a long period of time to discover everything that he can about it,” acknowledged Bottrell. “There was a process that I learned well, that any MJ release went through: a process of vetting, re-thinking, replacing midi with live players, etc. It was a long process.” In many cases, the average listener probably wouldn’t even notice the differences, but Jackson felt an intrinsic obligation to make his art “as perfect as humanly possible.”

With “Earth Song,” beyond the unfinished lyrics, his main concern was getting more momentum, energy, and power in the second half. While the falsetto cries (which Bottrell described as “very Marvin Gaye-ish”) in the call and response were poignant, he wasn’t sure it captured the outrage and urgency he hoped to convey. There were also some more minor nuances he wanted to tweak with the instrumentation and the mix. “Earth Song,” then, would stay in the vaults for another four years as Jackson promoted and toured for Dangerous.

One could expect this total commitment of time and effort into one song if that song was to play a major, major role within an artist’s body of work. Indeed, Earth Song did achieve that status in much of the world outside of the United States, but it was not even released as a single in your own country. Vogel attributes its lack of promotion in America to its ‘anti-corporate, anti-nature-raping’ themes and editorializes that ‘it was prone to censorship’ in the very country that presents itself as an example of freedom of speech. He comments:

Jackson saved the final ad libs for the last weekend of recording as he expected “to kill his voice” in the process. He told assistant engineers, Eddie Delena and Rob Hoffman, “I’m sorry, but I don’t think any of us are going to sleep this weekend. There’s a lot to get done, and we have to go to Bernie [Grundman for mastering] on Monday morning.”

Over the next few days, Jackson and a small crew of engineers ate, slept, and breathed the music. “He stayed at the studio the entire time,” recalled Hoffman, “singing and mixing. I got to spend a couple quiet moments with him during that time. We talked about John Lennon one night as he was gearing up to sing the last vocal of the record—the huge ad libs at the end of ‘Earth Song.’ I told him the story of John singing ‘Twist and Shout’ while being sick, and though most people think he was screaming for effect, it was actually his voice giving out. He loved it, and then went in to sing his heart out.”

As was his custom, Jackson sang that night with all the lights out. From the control room, Bruce Swedien and his crew of assistant engineers couldn’t see anything. Yet what they heard roaring out of the darkness was astonishing: it was as if Jackson was channeling from the lungs of the earth—a pained, fierce, prophetic voice, giving utterance to the suffering of the world. Those who witnessed it could feel the hair standing up on the back of their necks.

This was the Michael Jackson the media never knew: an artist so committed he could dissolve completely into a song and channel its emotions. ‘I’ve recorded just about everyone in music,’ says legendary recording engineer Bruce Swedien, who has also recorded Duke Ellington, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, and Barbara Streisand, among others, ‘and Michael is number one.’

In the end, he states that Earth Song ended up with 40-multi-track tapes and, eventually, crossed platforms from 24-track (analog) to digital recording techniques, the latter of which added to its depth. During the seven or eight years that the song was being developed, the technology was being perfected to achieve the “apocalyptic energy and tumult of mighty harmonies,” to adequately express the intensity that the song conveys.

However, one has to consider that this same amount of dedication, sweat equity and perfectionism was the foundation in every single one of your releases. Your dedication and devotion to your art is simply unprecedented.

I knew what I wanted it to sound like and I wouldn’t give up until the song that I heard in the recording studio sounded like the song I was hearing in my head and in my heart. It was the same thing when I was working on the short films for Ghosts or Thriller or BAD. And that hasn’t changed; I’m still me. It’s the same thing we’re doing now … all of you and I … the same dedication and devotion to extending the limits of a ‘pop’ song.

You are all my songs … every last one of you is a melody that I hear in my head … and in my heart … and in my soul. As you hear me singing in your head … I hear your melody in mine. As I am the soundtrack of your lives … you, too, are the soundtrack of mine!

This is a perfect illustration of what we are all doing here … and now. We are, as you said above, extending the limits of what a ‘pop’ song is capable of communicating … in this case, what you thought you were capable of becoming. In this, I will nurture each of you with the same loving patience, the same painstaking attention to detail, the same stubborn inability to let you go until you embody the melody that I am hearing in my heart as I did with the songs I left you. As you said earlier in these conversations, “When I latch on to something … or someone … it would take a small army to shake me loose.” There isn’t a small army in existence that can ‘shake me loose’ now. [Michael laughs.] You’re stuck with me.

Right now, we are working on broadening the height and breadth and depth of your horizons … in conceptualizing past the limitations and restrictions you have been imprisoned behind to discover the finished work.

You see an object like a metal table and think that it is solid. But it’s not. It’s a universe of particles so tiny and moving so rapidly around each other … separated by seemingly endless space and held in orbit by gravity … that our eyes can’t see the particles or register the movement. If you were standing on one of those tiny particles in the metal table, from your view it would be much like you standing on the Earth surrounded by infinite space and the other spinning, orbiting particles of the table would look like the stars in the night sky.

The same is true of the chair you’re sitting on and the computer you’re typing on and the bed you sleep on … and the rocks at the beach … and the tiny grain of sand that irritates the heck out of that oyster we talked about earlier until she coats it with nacre over and over again and it becomes a pearl of great price and lasting beauty. This is the model of creation.

And each one of those tiny particles vibrates at a different velocity, producing a tone. And all the tones combine together to create a symphony of majestic proportions and infinite scope and diversity. This is the Music of the Spheres that you’ve all heard about and wondered what the phrase could possibly mean.

I want you all to share this elaborate and intricate concert with me. I want you all to take your places on the stage within this vision … with me … because it is so beautiful … sooner rather than later … because I believe that the solutions to the problems of world hunger and war and hatred and greed lie fully-formed within the realm of possibility in which those particles are jiggling and circling … only awaiting your attention to be plucked out of that realm and put into action right here on Earth. Just like the songs that I heard reverberating endlessly within me, you are all the notes of our beautiful Symphony in the Key of Love.

I want you to stretch yourselves further than you thought you could stretch. I want you all to reach for me … as I reached always for better range … more perfect execution … more seamless meshing with technology … stretching and stretching again the boundaries of the word ‘possible.’ While you are reaching for me, rest assured … I am reaching for you.

What you feel is similar to someone who can’t reach something on a high shelf. So, she goes and grabs a chair, but the desired object is still out of reach. What’s worse, the chair is beginning to wobble and she’s afraid that she will fall off if she reaches any further. So, she gives up trying to reach it and returns the chair under the table, deciding to be content with what she has within arm’s reach. So, you ask me to come back in a recognizable form … in the form that you are all comfortable with … in the form that you all love and can wrap your minds around.

Don’t be alarmed! I won’t let you fall! I will hold the chair to give it more stability. I will catch you if you lose your balance and you will fall only as far as my arms. Stretch yourselves beyond your fullest height! Reach higher than you ever thought you could reach in your wildest imaginings! Imagine BIGGER!

The material world is only one tiny fraction of a universe that teams with life that you can’t see, hear, taste, touch or smell. But it is there and it holds endless, infinite discoveries and possibilities that you aren’t even aware of in your present world view. The human view is not the only view, but it is the only one to which any attention has been given for hundreds of years. For centuries, we have been traveling a road that admits only physical … three dimensional … boundaries … height, width and length. It’s time to re-awaken to the other dimensions that also exist.

Deep inside you know that this can’t be all there is … you all feel the discontent that this physical, logical material world with its greed and gluttony, its hatred and pain … is not all that life is intended to be … but you don’t know how to reach the next level. Don’t worry! Have FAITH! I’m here by your side to help!

The only access you have to those additional dimensions while still engaged in and committed to your human experience is through your imagination … your intuition … your spiritual senses … and your FAITH. Faith in yourselves as you are … in your potential to achieve the fullest extent of what you will be … and in the spiritual world that surrounds and supports you in every moment of your life. These need to be developed now more than ever because within them lies mankind’s salvation.

We need to expand your consciousness to include the infinite alternate possibilities that exist at the outer edge of your awareness. Like the high-pitched whistle that humans can’t hear, but dogs can … or the ultra-violet and other segments of the spectrum of light that humans can’t see, but that exist on the outer edge of human vision, we need to know … with certainty and without a shadow of doubt … that there is something unseen and unheard that still awaits our discovery the knowledge of which can change everything.

You depend on the visible and ignore the invisible. It is important for you to learn to make use of both. It is important for you to learn to sense what your physical senses were not equipped to reveal. I am here … in this way and at this time … yes, even though my physical existence has come to an end … to help you in this adventure … in this process of discovery. I should probably say re-discovery because these are things that all humans know in their spiritual awareness before they come to this planet. It’s just a process of remembering and rediscovering our place in this magnificent scheme in time to heal ourselves and the wounds we have caused our beautiful planet.

Our first step together is for all of you to recognize that material and spiritual are not separate … that both of these two different perspectives are available at your fingertips at all times to help you through your physical experience. You do not need to be clairvoyant; you do not need to be clairaudient; you do not need night vision goggles or expensive technology. All you need is love … and faith … and the willingness to be open to new ways of seeing and hearing. All you need is faith in yourselves as spiritual beings whose first home is God’s all-encompassing love.

It is not material during your physical experience as you have been taught to build up your treasures in heaven. It is not spiritual after your physical experience as all of your religions have tried to make you believe for too long. It is both … at the same time … in balance and perfectly complimenting each other … right here and right now! They are not mutually exclusive. As a matter of fact, they are mutually inclusive. There is no division. “We were never separate … you and I … it’s just an illusion wrought by the magical lens of perception.”

This, then, is the task that we are currently engaged in … and it is working. You all know that I am near. You are all hearing me or seeing me or feeling me in your own ways. Most importantly, you all are taking my nearness … my touch upon your lives … as a treasured gift … and you are sharing that gift in the ways that come most naturally to you with your world. God bless you all! Thank you for retaining enough faith and trust in me to allow me to continue to influence your lives.

If I came back … physically … you would have no reason to look for more than the material, physical plane of existence to which you are all accustomed and to which you have given all your allegiance until now; you wouldn’t have to stretch your awareness to include the spiritual facets of yourself. If I remain just outside your human experience, you have to stretch to touch my fingers and I have to stretch to kiss your tears away and play your individual melodies to create beautiful music that pleases and enchants us both.

As you reach for me you also stretch your belief structure to accommodate the possibility of a continuing, ongoing, spiritual and, yet, somehow, physically fulfilling (at least for some of you)[Michael giggles], emotionally enlivening, loving relationship with a ‘dead’ man. You are expanding your awareness to include other possibilities than merely the ones your world has taught you and in those other possibilities lies the key to your salvation … and your world’s. This is the pact we have made between us. You are discovering alternate ways of being whole and exhibiting your wholeness to a world which gives little importance to balance or wholeness. You are forming dreams of a more integrated self-awareness … informed by the world of spirit while still engaged in and committed to material, physical life on an ongoing basis … and laying the groundwork for more spiritually-based living on an individual … and a collective … scale.

You are all earthbound caterpillars. You are all concentrating all your thought, energy and imagination on being earthbound caterpillars … ‘plodding determinedly’ as you described it in an earlier conversation … with your eyes glued to the ground less than an inch in front of you … being concerned with the things a caterpillar is concerned with … not realizing that those things offer a very limited, restricted outlook on the life you are living. You don’t look up as the caterpillar doesn’t look up. You are unaware that there is another kind of life … one of freedom … one of bliss … one of floating on air currents … one of integration and creativity. You don’t even ask yourself, “is this all there is?” because you aren’t aware that there is a self to ask.

However, inside the caterpillar is an unrealized potential … a beautiful, carefree butterfly with gossamer, stained glass wings awaiting birth. You are not even aware that such a creature could possibly exist; such things are beyond your limited thinking. Caterpillars can’t see the sky; their eyes are not placed in their heads in the right position for sky viewing nor is their sense of sight acute enough to see that far above them.

Yet, in just a few short weeks you will be in a state of suspended animation and a short while after that some kind of magician somewhere will wave his magic wand … and you will be a butterfly! Let me be your magician. Let me show you what lies in store for you. If you could only see past the caterpillar’s blindness to the freedom of the butterfly, you would be so uplifted and your heart would soar, even while your little caterpillar bodies are still earthbound. That’s what we’re doing here … you and I … all of you and I.

Like the caterpillar, you limit yourself, instead of reaching higher, because it is what you are familiar with and what your world has taught you to be satisfied with. The smallest, most insignificant change in perspective (like alive and dead) frightens you. Total metamorphosis is unthinkable. You have very little faith in the butterfly’s presence, but it is there lying dormant within you, just awaiting the proper genetic and environmental triggers to manifest itself. Let me be those triggers.

The purpose of this exercise is to awaken the butterfly … without having to depend on the chrysalis … to alert your spiritual senses to my presence. This journey that we are all on is one step at a time and each step in the process is incremental, leading you on to the next step. First, you have to be aware that there is more to life than the one-sided, myopic, earthbound view in which you are currently imprisoned before you can have the faith necessary to bring that perspective into your reality. We need to get your earthbound caterpillar eyes to see another way of looking at life. Since your earthbound caterpillar vision is not acute enough to see so far above your heads, we need to awaken your spiritual sight … your imagination … to envision me reaching for you … to awaken in you the desire to reach for me.

The next step is for us to quicken your faith in that other view of life, in your ability to climb high enough to touch me and in my ability to reach far enough to touch you. Some of you … I won’t mention any names, here <ahem> … but you know who you are … are stuck here! You just insist on losing your balance and falling off that chair! You are faith-filled, beautiful, almost-butterflies when you are writing or dancing or listening, but then you let the world intrude itself into our journey … and you allow doubt to bring you crashing back to Earth. But, remember … you can only fall as far as my arms.

I understand, my Dear One … but it’s so hard when I read something that upsets me about your last days with us or contemplate the trial of the man who ended your beautiful love song.

[Michael laughs.] Aha! So, you recognized yourself in that statement. Don’t apologize … I understand … and I am infinitely patient with your melody just as I was infinitely patient with Earth Song. We will work on it together … step-by-step. And the results will be breathtaking … powerful … enchanting! Trust me!

No one has ended my beautiful love song; it is still playing within each one of you. You hear it always; it is the soundtrack of your life. You see it always; it is the vision of me that accompanies you in each moment of your day, the one you carry in your heart forever. And I see and hear it always; I still struggle to capture your melody and mold it until it is as “perfect as humanly possible” … perhaps, just a little bit more perfect.

You are my beautiful love song … and we have work to do … we have a world to create in the image and likeness of LOVE.

But I hate to think of you abused … or exploited … or in any kind of pain, Beloved!

Let me ask you this: Can you change any part of it by worrying about it? Isn’t it over and done with? The important thing to remember is that I survived it! Perhaps, not in exactly the way you all would have liked, but I’m still here … and I am still shaping and molding all of the melodies that I hear in my head and in my heart … and I’m not letting go of any of them until they are as perfect as spiritually possible! ‘Fought in a battle where nobody won; left ourselves a mountain to be overcome. You can’t run away. The past is said and done. I need us to carry on.’ [Michael sings.] Worry is the battle where nobody won. We need to change that to ‘we fight in a battle where everyone wins.’

You have to dream the dream before you can achieve it.

You have to aim for a goal before you can reach it.

You have to reach for the star before you can touch it.

Reach for me; I will make the reaching worthwhile every step along the way … because I love you more.

Jan – August 4, 2011

Special thanks to Elmira for allowing me to use her breathtakingly beautiful video to illustrate this Conversation. We love you MORE, Elmira!